A council has launched a legal bid to prevent a town centre hotel from being used to house asylum seekers.

Fenland District Council has applied for an interim injunction from the High Court after it was informed the Rose and Crown in Wisbech had been secured for a Home Office contract.

The Home Office said it does not comment on individual sites but numbers arriving in the UK had reached record levels leaving the asylum system under "incredible strain”. 

It said local authorities are “engaged” as early as possible whenever locations are considered for asylum accommodation to ensure arrangements are safe.

The Rose and Crown, on the town's Market Place, announced its closure on Friday afternoon. Within hours, Fenland District Council warned it was prepared to take legal action over concerns the hotel was preparing to accept asylum seekers.  

Later in the evening, Serco, the contractor which runs the Home Office’s asylum seeker operation, confirmed its plans to use the venue.  

Fenland is the latest in a string of local authorities to take legal steps to stop the government from using hotels to house asylum seekers, following Great Yarmouth Borough Council, East Riding of Yorkshire Council, Stoke City Council and Ipswich Borough Council.

It said it has since spent the weekend working on a legal case.   

Chris Boden, leader of Fenland council, said: “It is thoroughly irresponsible of the Home Office to consider placing vulnerable people with no recourse to public funding in a town such as Wisbech, without any consultation or any consideration of the impact this will have on the asylum seekers themselves.   

“We are in a rural location, with very limited hotel accommodation and transport links, and we already have significant issues with migrant exploitation and human trafficking, which would put any people placed here at risk.”  

A statement issued by the council said the injunction is aimed at preventing the Rose and Crown from being used for housing asylum seekers.  

It said it has argued the hotel’s change of use to a hostel is a breach of planning law and “the harm of arising from such a breach is significant”.